The League of Nations was broken by the
Abyssinian crisis. Afterwards no one took it seriously. The failure of the
League was highlighted by Hailie Selassie, the Abyssinian emperor, who made a
passionate speech to the League Assembly after his country had been conquered.

A discredited League

In the crises that followed Abyssinia, the
League was completely helpless. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936
Germany and Italy sent help to the anti-government side. The Spanish government
appealed to the League: the League did nothing. In 1938-9, as the Second World
War drew close, the League played no part in serious attempts to avoid
conflict. When war broke out in September 1939 none of the countries involved
bothered to tell the League that a war was taking place.

Germany and Abyssinia

Hitler was deeply interested in the crisis in
Abyssinia. He wanted to know how far Britain and France would go to stop the
Italians. He was not impressed at the confused and feeble response of the
democracies.

The fall of the Stresa Front

After Abyssinia the British and French
governments hoped to re-establish a good relationship with Italy. Mussolini had
different ideas. He had been annoyed by what he saw as British and French
double dealing. Instead he turned to Hitler. The German leader had not
interfered over Abyssinia. In January 1936 Mussolini thanked Hitler and made it
clear that he was happy for an increase in German control over Austria, This
was a significant development. In 1934 Mussolini had opposed German
expansionism towards Austria. The Stresa Front against Germany had collapsed.

The Axis and the Anti-Comintern Pact

By November Mussolini was talking of a new
force in European politics - a linking together of the fascist states of Italy
and Germany called the Rome-Berlin Axis. Later in the same month the leaders of
Germany, Italy and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact (Comintern was the
Soviet organization whose job was to spread communism world-wide).

On one level, the Anti-Comintern Pact was
simply an agreement to work together against communism. As far as Hitler was
concerned it was much more important than that; it was a step towards an
alliance of those countries that wanted to take land off their neighbors.

The Benefits of the Abyssinian Crisis for
Hitler:

• The League was unlikely to stop German
aggression any more than it had stopped Mussolini.

• The anti-German Stresa Front fell apart.

• The crisis provided Hitler with an
opportunity for his first act of aggression - the sending of German troops into
the Rhineland area.

• The Rome-Berlin Axis and the Anti-Comintern
Pact strengthened the position of Hitler.